Ticketmaster, Live Nation Sued by FTC Over Ticket Resales (2)

The US Federal Trade Commission and seven states sued Live Nation Entertainment Inc. and its Ticketmaster subsidiary for failing to stem the use of automated ticketing bots and large-scale resale operations.

The consumer protection agency said the nation’s largest ticketing platform failed to enforce its own purchase limits, which allowed resellers to buy up large numbers of passes for popular events, according to a lawsuit filed in California federal court Thursday. The agency said that Ticketmaster systematically ignored ticket brokers that bypassed its limits since it earns money from resales.

“The company routinely chooses to turn a blind eye to broker circumvention of ticket limits,” the FTC said in its complaint. Ticketmaster’s “unlawful conduct and tacit coordination with brokers injures fans, who have paid far more than the advertised ticket price for both box office and resale tickets, and who are forced to pay inflated resale prices for high-demand tickets.”

Live Nation shares fell as much as 3.5%, the biggest intraday drop since May 29, and were down 1.3% at 11:39 a.m. in New York.

Live Nation didn’t have an immediate comment.

Ticketmaster can “triple dip” on fees, the FTC alleged, since it earns money on the first ticket sale as well as from both the buyer and seller on resales. On the first sale, the FTC said, fees averaged between 24% and 44%, requiring consumers to pay $16 billion, much of which is retained by the company.

All told, Ticketmaster took in $11 billion in fees on primary and resold tickets between 2019 and 2024, the FTC said.

The agency said Ticketmaster’s actions violated both the FTC Act, which bars deceptive conduct, as well as the Better Online Ticket Sales Act, or BOTS Act, which was passed in 2016 to prevent large-scale ticket scalping by banning the use of bots, or automated methods of circumventing per-person ticket limits.

The FTC has redoubled its scrutiny of ticket sales under the Trump administration after the White House issued an executive order in March directing the agency to prioritize enforcement of the BOTS Act. The order mandates a report on how agencies are complying by the end of September.

Last month, the agency sued a Maryland-based ticket broker for violating the BOTS Act on ticket purchases to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. The company has denied wrongdoing, saying the FTC has adopted an overly expansive interpretation of the law.

(Updates with additional details beginning in fourth paragraph.)

--With assistance from Josh Sisco.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Leah Nylen in Washington at lnylen2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net

Elizabeth Wasserman, Rob Golum

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